Nigel Slater: Use your head

A gloriously sunny Saturday morning. I'm weeding the herb bed and wondering why on earth I ever planted lovage. The great stalks of celery-scented herb tower over the rosemary and shield light from the purple-flowered oregano and the rabbit-eared French lavender. I could, I suppose, make lovage soup again, but it's not something you really need to do twice. I decide instead to rip it up - the hollow stems pop satisfyingly as you tug at them - and vow to plant something worthwhile.

Half an hour ago I put some garlic in to roast. Six fat young heads each sliced across the middle, doused in (perfectly ordinary) olive oil, and seasoned with salt and bay leaves. I only stepped out to pick a handful of oregano to tuck under the garlic halfway through cooking, and next thing I know I have trimmed the fennel to stop it going to seed, snipped the seed heads off the angelica and pulled up the white borage that is smothering everything in sight. But there, that's what happens when you dig up your lawn and plant a little kitchen garden.

The exposed cloves are bubbling in their skins and have turned tender, golden and sweet. Some of them are destined for a purée, creamed till the crushed cloves will spread like butter; others are earmarked for today's lunch, to be eaten whole, tossed in a salad with roasted red peppers, basil and salty little anchovies.

This way of cooking garlic (young, juicy heads slow-roasted) is the very opposite of the hit-me-hard stuff that gushes up in the hot smoke of a stir-fry. This is garlic so mellow I half expect to open the oven door and find it listening to Peggy Lee. This is garlic that kisses you gently rather than smacks you in the face. Albeit very definitely a French kiss.

If I wasn't doing the red pepper thing for lunch, I could use the garlic for toast. You squeeze the warm roast cloves from their papery skin and mash them on thick toast, then upend the (absurdly expensive) olive-oil bottle over it. You scatter it with enough salt to bring on an early thrombosis and eat the lot while it is just that bit too hot. This is a regular at Saturday lunches in summer, along with tiny black olives, buffalo mozzarella or English goat's ricotta, white bean salad and a tomato salad with basil leaves the size of laurel leaves. Don't we just reek of summer?

Some say to blanch garlic before you roast it, but this only applies to the dried heads. The dip in boiling water takes the coarse edge off their pungency. It is not at all necessary with the tight cloves of mild summer garlic. If the outer skin is still supple and doesn't rustle as you pull it back, then the cloves are too young to need the water treatment.

I roast a good few heads at once. They keep well enough popped from their skins and covered with cheap olive oil. I mash what I need, then use the others during the week, crushed in a salad dressing, blitzed with parsley, lemon juice, basil and olive to make a dressing for cold roast beef, tossed whole with noodles, parsley and toasted breadcrumbs or pushed into tomato halves prior to grilling.

Their happiest ending is when I mash the sticky, golden cloves into the gravy from the roast. I lift the joint from its tin, put it on the heat and pour in a glass of white wine or Marsala. I then drop in the garlic, mash it into the juices with a fork or the potato masher and grind in some salt and black pepper. At this point I add a mound of watercress to my plate to wilt a little as I use it to mop up the hot garlicky gravy. All things considered, perhaps I should try lovage instead.

Grilled pepper salad with feta and roast garlic

This recipe chops and changes as the summer goes on. Sometimes I use rocket as the leafy bulk, other times Little Gem or its lanky sister Cos. I might swap the red peppers for yellow or orange, but never green (which give me indigestion even to look at them). Sometimes there are anchovies. What remains static is the salty snap of feta cheese. Even since the photo opposite was taken, I have changed the dressing. Cooking shouldn't stand still, especially with salads, which beg for improvisation.

Cut the peppers in half and pull out the stalk. Scrape out all the seeds and pith with your fingers, then grill the peppers till the skins are black. Put the peppers into a bowl and cover them with a tea towel or cling film so that they steam. This will loosen the skins. When they are cool enough to handle, peel away the charred skins, slice the peppers into wide strips, and put them in a bowl.

Pop the roasted garlic cloves from their skins. If they are cold, then heat a little olive oil in a shallow pan and cook the peeled garlic until it is hot and golden. (It tastes better hot.)

Put the peppers and roasted garlic into a bowl. Rinse the anchovy fillets, pat them dry, then drop them in with the peppers. Crumble the feta in big chunks into the bowl and add the olives. Now pile the rocket leaves on top.

Make the dressing: put the garlic into the jug of a blender. Pour in the lemon juice and olive oil, then stuff in the basil leaves and just a little salt and black pepper. Blitz till you have bright green dressing the consistency of double cream. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss gently.

An invaluable garlic purée

A fragrant, honey-coloured garlic purée has almost infinite uses in the summer kitchen. I use it mostly for spreading on to thick, hot toast with a drizzle of olive oil. What you are after is a creamy purée, and a decent amount of it, too. Use the fattest, juiciest heads of garlic you can find.

Slice the heads of garlic across their diameter. Put them in a shallow baking dish, cut side up. Tip over the olive oil and tuck in a few sprigs of thyme and a couple of bay leaves. Bake at 180 C/ gas mark 4 for 40 to 50 minutes, basting from time to time, till they are golden and the cut edges are pale gold. The cloves must be soft enough to squash between your fingers.

When they are cool enough to handle, scoop the soft cloves from their skins with a teaspoon and remove the tiny brown root. Mash to a purée using a pestle and mortar, a wooden spoon or, if you have cooked a large number of heads, a food processor. (You need quite a bit of garlic for the blade to engage.)